Download Greece (Greek: Ελλάδα, Elláda), officially the Hellenic Republic

Greece (Greek: Ελλάδα, Elláda),
Officially the Hellenic Republic (Ellīnikî Dīmokratía), is a country in Southeast Europe. Athens is the
country's capital and largest city (its urban area also including the municipality of Piraeus). According to
the preliminary 2011 census data, Greece's population is about 11 million.
Greece has land borders with Albania, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey
to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of mainland Greece, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the
Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km
(8,498 mi) in length, featuring a vast number of islands (approximately 1,400, of which 227 are inhabited),
including Crete, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, and the Ionian Islands among others. Eighty percent of
Greece consists of mountains, of which Mount Olympus is the highest at 2,917 m (9,570 ft).
Modern Greece traces its roots to the civilization of ancient Greece, generally considered the cradle of
Western civilization. As such, it is the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, the Olympic Games,
Western literature and historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, and
Western drama, including both tragedy and comedy. This legacy is partly reflected in the seventeen
UNESCO World Heritage Sites located in Greece, ranking Greece 7th in Europe and 13th in the world.
The modern Greek state was established in 1830, following the Greek War of Independence.
Greece has been a member of what is now the European Union since 1981 and the eurozone since 2001,
NATO since 1952, and is a founding member of the United Nations. Greece is a developed country with
an advanced, high-income economy and very high standards of living, including the 21st highest quality
of life as of 2010.
NAME
Greece's name differs in comparison with the names used for the country in other languages and cultures,
just like the names of the Greeks. Although the Greeks call the country Hellas or Ellada (Greek: Ελλάς,
Ελλάδα) and its official name is Hellenic Republic, in English the country is called Greece, which comes
from Latin Graecia as used by the Romans and literally means 'the land of the Greeks', and derives from
the Greek name Γραικός; however, the name Hellas is sometimes used in English too.
POLITICS
Greece is a parliamentary republic. The nominal head of state is the President of the Republic, who is
elected by the Parliament for a five-year term. The current Constitution was drawn up and adopted by the
Fifth Revisionary Parliament of the Hellenes and entered into force in 1975 after the fall of the military
junta of 1967–1974. It has been revised three times since, in 1986, 2001 and in 2008. The Constitution,
which consists of 120 articles, provides for a separation of powers into executive, legislative, and judicial
branches, and grants extensive specific guarantees (further reinforced in 2001) of civil liberties and social
rights. Women's suffrage was guaranteed with a 1952 Constitutional amendment.
According to the Constitution, executive power is exercised by the President of the Republic and the
Government. From the Constitutional amendment of 1986 the President's duties were curtailed to a
significant extent, and they are now largely ceremonial; most political power thus lies in the hands of the
Prime Minister. The position of Prime Minister, Greece's head of government, belongs to the current
leader of the political party that can obtain a vote of confidence by the Parliament. The President of the
Republic formally appoints the Prime Minister and, on his recommendation, appoints and dismisses the
other members of the Cabinet.
Legislative powers are exercised by a 300-member elective unicameral Parliament. Statutes passed by the
Parliament are promulgated by the President of the Republic. Parliamentary elections are held every four
years, but the President of the Republic is obliged to dissolve the Parliament earlier on the proposal of the
Cabinet, in view of dealing with a national issue of exceptional importance. The President is also obliged
to dissolve the Parliament earlier, if the opposition manages to pass a motion of no confidence.
Debt crisis (2010–2012)
By the end of 2009, as a result of a combination of
international and local factors the Greek economy faced its
most-severe crisis since the restoration of democracy in
1974 as the Greek government revised its deficit from an
estimated 6% to 12.7% of gross domestic product (GDP).
In early 2010, it was revealed that through the assistance of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and
numerous other banks, financial products were developed which enabled the governments of Greece, Italy
and possibly other countries to hide their borrowing. Dozens of similar agreements were concluded across
Europe whereby banks supplied cash in advance in exchange for future payments by the governments
involved; in turn, the liabilities of the involved countries were "kept off the books".
This had enabled Greek governments to spend beyond their means, while meeting the deficit targets of the
European Union. In May 2010, the Greek government deficit was again revised and estimated to be 13.6%
which was the second highest in the world relative to GDP with Iceland in first place at 15.7% and Great
Britain third with 12.6% Public debt was forecast, according to some estimates, to hit 120% of GDP
during 2010.
Cities
Almost two-thirds of the Greek people live in urban areas. Greece's largest and most influential
metropolitan centres are those of Athens and Thessaloniki, with metropolitan populations of
approximately 4 million and 1 million inhabitants respectively. Other prominent cities with urban
populations above 100,000 inhabitants include those of Patras, Heraklion, Larissa, Volos, Rhodes,
Ioannina, Chania and Chalcis.
Religion in Greece
Holy Trinity monastery, in Meteora, Thessaly.
The Greek Constitution recognizes the Orthodox Christian faith as the "prevailing" faith of the country,
while guaranteeing freedom of religious belief for all.The Greek government does not keep statistics on
religious groups and censuses do not ask for religious affiliation. According to the U.S. State Department,
an estimated 97% of Greek citizens identify themselves as Orthodox Christians, belonging to the Greek
Orthodox Church. In a Eurostat – Eurobarometer 2005 poll, 81% of Greek citizens responded that they
"believe there is a God", which was the third highest percentage among EU members behind only Malta
and Cyprus. According to other sources, 15.8% of Greeks describe themselves as "very religious", which
is the highest among all European countries. The survey also found that just 3.5% never attend a church,
compared to 4.9% in Poland and 59.1% in the Czech Republic.
CULTURE
The culture of Greece has evolved over thousands of years, beginning in Mycenaean Greece and
continuing most notably into Classical Greece, through the influence of the Roman Empire and its Greek
Eastern successor, the Byzantine Empire. Other cultures and nations, such as the Latin and Frankish states,
the Ottoman Empire, the Venetian Republic, the Genoese Republic, and the British Empire have also left
their influence on modern Greek culture, although historians credit the Greek War of Independence with
revitalising Greece and giving birth to a single, cohesive entity of its multi-faceted culture. Most western
philosophical traditions began in Ancient Greece in the 6th century BC. The first philosophers are called
"Presocratics," which designates that they came before Socrates, whose contributions mark a turning point
in western thought. The Presocratics were from the western or the eastern colonies of Greece and only
fragments of their original writings survive, in some cases merely a single sentence.
A new period of philosophy started with Socrates. Like the Sophists, he rejected entirely the physical
speculations in which his predecessors had indulged, and made the thoughts and opinions of people his
starting-point. Aspects of Socrates were first united from Plato, who also combined with them many of the
principles established by earlier philosophers, and developed the whole of this material into the unity of a
comprehensive system.
Aristotle of Stagira, the most important disciple of Plato, shared with his teacher the title of the greatest
philosopher of antiquity. But while Plato had sought to elucidate and explain things from the suprasensual standpoint of the forms, his pupil preferred to start from the facts given us by experience. Except
from these three most significant Greek philosophers other known schools of Greek philosophy from other
founders during ancient times were Stoicism, epicureanism, Skepticism and Neoplatonism.
Greek literature can be divided into three main categories: Ancient, Byzantine and modern Greek
literature.
At the beginning of Greek literature stand the two monumental works of Homer: the Iliad and the
Odyssey. Though dates of composition vary, these works were fixed around 800 BC or after. In the
classical period many of the genres of western literature became more prominent. Lyrical poetry, odes,
pastorals, elegies, epigrams; dramatic presentations of comedy and tragedy;historiography, rhetorical
treatises, philosophical dialectics, and philosophical treatises all arose in this period.The two major lyrical
poets were Sappho and Pindar. The Classical era also saw the dawn of drama.
Of the hundreds of tragedies written and performed during the classical age, only a limited number of
plays by three authors have survived: those of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The surviving plays
by Aristophanes are also a treasure trove of comic presentation, while Herodotus and Thucydides are two
of the most influential historians in this period. The greatest prose achievement of the 4th century was in
philosophy with the works of the three great philosophers.
Sports
Panathenaic Stadium at the first day of the 1896 Summer Olympics.
Greece is the birthplace of the Olympic Games, first recorded in 776 BC. The Panathenaic Stadium in
Athens, a replica of an ancient Greek stadium, hosted the Olympic Games in 1896. It had also hosted
Olympic Games in 1870 and 1875 (see Evangelis Zappas). The Panathenaic stadium also hosted the
Games in 1906 and was used to host events at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
The Greek national football team, ranked 14th in the world in 2012, won the UEFA Euro 2004 in one of
the biggest upsets in the history of the sport. The Greek Super League is the highest professional football
league in the country comprising sixteen teams. The most successful are Olympiacos, Panathinaikos and
AEK Athens.
The Greek national basketball team has a decades-long tradition of excellence in the sport. As of 2012, it
ranked 4th in the world. They have won the European Championship twice in 1987 and 2005, and have
reached the final four in three of the last four FIBA World Championships, taking second place in 2006.
The domestic top basketball league, A1 Ethniki, is composed of fourteen teams. The most successful
Greek teams are Panathinaikos, Olympiacos, Aris Thessaloniki and AEK Athens.
Water polo and volleyball are also practiced widely in Greece while cricket and handball are relatively
popular in Corfu and Veroia respectively.
TOURISM
An important percentage of Greece's national income comes from tourism. Tourism funds 16% of the
gross domestic products which also includes the Tourism Council and the London-Based World Travel.
According to Eurostat statistics, Greece welcomed over 19.5 million tourists in 2009, which is an increase
from the 17.7 million tourists it welcomed in 2007. The vast majority of visitors in Greece in 2007 came
from the EuIn 2010, Lonely Planet ranked Greece's northern and second-largest city of Thessaloniki
as the world's fifth-best party town worldwide, comparable to other cities such as Dubai and Montreal.
In 2011, Santorini
was voted as "The World's Best Island" in Travel + Leisure. Its neighboring island Mykonos, came in fifth
in the European categoryropean continent, numbering 12.7 million,
Greece consists of a mountainous, peninsular mainland jutting out into the sea at the southern end of the
Balkans, ending at the Peloponnese peninsula (separated from the mainland by the canal of the Isthmus of
Corinth). Due to its highly indented coastline and numerous islands, Greece has the 11th longest coastline
in the world with13,676 km (8,498 mi); its land boundary is 1,160 km (721 mi). The country lies
approximately between latitudes 34° and 42° N, and longitudes 19° and 30° E.
Greece features a vast number of islands, between 1,200 and 6,000, depending on the definition, 227 of
which are inhabited. Crete is the largest and most populous island; Euboea, separated from the mainland
by the 60m-wide Euripus Strait, is the second largest, followed by Rhodes and Lesbos.
HISTORY
Ancient Greece
There are no fixed or universally agreed dates for the beginning or the end of the Ancient/Classical Greek
period. In common usage it refers to all Greek history before the Roman Empire, but historians use the
term more precisely. Some writers include the periods of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, while
others argue that these civilizations were so different from later Greek cultures that they should be classed
separately. Traditionally, the Ancient Greek period was taken to begin with the date of the first Olympic
Games in 776 BC, but most historians now extend the term back to about 1000 BC. The traditional date
for the end of the Ancient Greek period is the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. The period that
follows is classed as Hellenistic. Not everyone treats the Ancient and Hellenic periods as distinct,
however, and some writers treat the Ancient Greek civilization as a continuum running until the advent of
Christianity in the 3rd century AD.
Ancient Greece is considered by most historians to be the foundational culture of Western Civilization.
Greek culture was a powerful influence in the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts
of Europe. Ancient Greek civilization has been immensely influential on the language, politics,
educational systems, philosophy, art and architecture of the modern world, particularly during the
Renaissance in Western Europe and again during various neo-Classical revivals in 18th and 19th century
Europe and the Americas.
Classical Greece
The basic unit of politics in Ancient Greece was the polis, sometimes translated as city-state. "Politics"
literally means "the things of the polis". Each city was independent, at least in theory. Some cities might
be subordinate to others (a colony traditionally deferred to its mother city), some might have had
governments wholly dependent upon others (the Thirty Tyrants in Athens was imposed by Sparta
following the Peloponnesian War), but the titularly supreme power in each city was located within that
city. This meant that when Greece went to war (e.g., against the Persian Empire), it took the form of an
alliance going to war. It also gave ample opportunity for wars within Greece between different cities.
Two major wars shaped the Classical Greek world. The Persian Wars (500–448 BC) are recounted in
Herodotus's Histories. Ionian Greek cities revolted from the Persian Empire and were supported by some
of the mainland cities, eventually led by Athens. The notable battles of this war include Marathon,
Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea.)
To prosecute the war and then to defend Greece from further Persian attack, Athens founded the Delian
League in 477 BC. Initially, each city in the League would contribute ships and soldiers to a common
army, but in time Athens allowed (and then compelled) the smaller cities to contribute funds so that it
could supply their quota of ships. Secession from the League could be punished. Following military
reversals against the Persians, the treasury was moved from Delos to Athens, further strengthening the
latter's control over the League. The Delian League was eventually referred to pejoratively as the Athenian
Empire.
In 458 BC, while the Persian Wars were still ongoing, war broke out between the Delian League and the
Peloponnesian League, comprising Sparta and its allies. After some inconclusive fighting, the two sides
signed a peace in 447 BC. That peace, it was stipulated, was to last thirty years: instead it held only until
431 BC, with the onset of the Peloponnesian War. Our main sources concerning this war are Thucydides's
History of the Peloponnesian War and Xenophon's Hellenica.
The war had left devastation in its wake. Discontent with the Spartan hegemony that followed (including
the fact that it ceded Ionia and Cyprus to the Persian Empire at the conclusion of the Corinthian War
(395–387 BC); see Treaty of Antalcidas) induced the Thebans to attack. Their general, Epaminondas,
crushed Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, inaugurating a period of Theban dominance in Greece.
In 346 BC, unable to prevail in its ten-year war with Phocis, Thebes called upon Philip II of Macedon for
aid. Macedon quickly forced the city states into being united by the League of Corinth which led to the
conquering of the Persian Empire and the Hellenistic Age had begun. The Hellenistic period of Greek
history begins with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and ends with the annexation of the Greek
peninsula and islands by Rome in 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the
continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the advent of
Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence.
Hellenistic Greece
The Hellenistic period of Greek history begins with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and ends
with the annexation of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome in 146 BC. Although the establishment
of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially
unchanged until the advent of Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence
During the Hellenistic period the importance of "Greece proper" (that is, the territory of modern Greece)
within the Greek-speaking world declined sharply. The great centres of Hellenistic culture were
Alexandria and Antioch, capitals of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria.
Roman Greece
Militarily, Greece itself declined to the point that the Romans conquered the land (168 BC onwards),
though Greek culture would in turn conquer Roman life. Although the period of Roman rule in Greece is
conventionally dated as starting from the sacking of Corinth by the Roman Lucius Mummius in 146 BC,
Macedonia had already come under Roman control with the defeat of its king, Perseus, by the Roman
Aemilius Paullus at Pydna in 168 BC.
Byzantine Empire (4th century - 1453)
The history of the East Roman or Byzantine Empire is described by Byzantinist August Heisenberg as the
history of "the Christianized Roman empire of the Greek nation".[13] The division of the empire into East
and West and the subsequent collapse of the Western Roman Empire were developments that constantly
accentuated the position of the Greeks in the empire and eventually allowed them to become identified
with it altogether. The leading role of Constantinople began when Constantine the Great turned Byzantium
into the new capital of the Roman Empire, from then on to be known as Constantinople, placing the city at
the center of Hellenism a beacon for the Greeks that lasted to the modern era.
Ottoman rule
When the Ottomans arrived, two Greek migrations occurred. The first migration entailed the Greek
intelligentsia migrating to Western Europe and influencing the advent of the Renaissance. The second
migration entailed Greeks leaving the plains of the Greek peninsula and resettling in the mountains.[14]
The millet system contributed to the ethnic cohesion of Orthodox Greeks by segregating the various
peoples within the Ottoman Empire based on religion.
The Greeks living in the plains during Ottoman domination were either Christians who dealt with the
burdens of foreign rule or Crypto-Christians (Greek Muslims who were secret practitioners of the Greek
Orthodox faith). Some Greeks became Crypto-Christians to avoid heavy taxes and at the same time
express their identity by maintaining their ties to the Greek Orthodox Church. However, Greeks who
converted to Islam and were not Crypto-Christians were deemed Turks in the eyes of Orthodox Greeks,
even if they didn't adopt Turkish language.The Ottomans ruled Greece until the early 19th century.
Modern Greek state
In the early months of 1821, the Greeks declared their independence but did not achieve it until 1829. The
Great Powers first shared the same view concerning the necessity of preserving the status quo of the
Ottoman Empire, but soon changed their stance. Scores of non-Greeks volunteered to fight for the cause,
including Lord Byron.
On 20 October 1827, a combined British, French and Russian naval force destroyed the Ottoman and
Egyptian armada. The Russian minister of foreign affairs, Ioannis Kapodistrias, himself a Greek, returned
home as President of the new Republic. After his assassination the European powers helped turn Greece
into a monarchy; the first King, Otto, came from Bavaria and the second, George I, from Denmark.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries Greece sought to enlarge its boundaries to include the ethnic
Greek population of the Ottoman Empire. The Ionian Islands were returned by Britain upon the arrival of
the new King George I in 1863 and Thessaly was ceded by the Ottomans. As a result of the Balkan Wars
of 1912-13 Epirus, southern Macedonia, Crete and the Aegean Islands were annexed into the Kingdom of
Greece. Another enlargement followed in 1947, when Greece annexed the Dodecanese Islands from Italy.
World War I and Greco-Turkish War
In World War I, Greece sided with the Entente powers against Ottoman Empire and the other Central
Powers. In the war's aftermath, the Great Powers awarded parts of Asia Minor to Greece, including the
city of Smyrna (known as İzmir today) which had a Greek population of significant size.
However, the Turkish nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, overthrew the Ottoman government,
organised a military assault on the Greek troops and defeated them. Immediately afterwards, over one
million native Greeks of Turkey had to leave for Greece as a population exchange between Greece and
Turkey.
World War II
Despite the country's numerically small and ill-equipped armed forces, Greece made a decisive
contribution to the Allied efforts in World War II. At the start of the war Greece sided with the Allies and
refused to give in to Italian demands. Italy invaded Greece by way of Albania on 28 October 1940, but
Greek troops repelled the invaders after a bitter struggle (see Greco-Italian War). This marked the first
Allied victory in the war.
Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War (Greek: Eμφύλιος πόλεμος Emfílios pólemos), was fought between 1944 and 1949 in
Greece between the Governmental forces of Greece supported by the United Kingdom at first, and later by
the USA, and the Democratic Army of Greece; the military branch of the Greek communist party.
According to some analysts, it represented the first example of a post-war West interference in the
political situation of a foreign country.[16] The victory of the British—and later US-supported government
forces led to Greece's membership in NATO and helped to define the ideological balance of power in the
Aegean for the entire Cold War.
The civil war consisted on one side of the armed forces of the postwar non-Marxist Greek administrations,
and on the other, communist-led forces, and key members of the former resistance organization (ELAS),
the leadership of which was controlled by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).
FLAG
The flag of Greece (popularly referred to as the "sky blue-white" or the "blue-white", officially recognized by
Greece as one of its national symbols, is based on nine equal horizontal stripes of blue alternating with white.
There is a blue canton in the upper hoist-side corner bearing a white cross; the cross symbolizes Eastern
Orthodox Christianity, the established religion of the Greek people of Greece and Cyprus. According to
popular tradition, the nine stripes represent the nine syllables of the phrase "Ελευθερία ή Θάνατος" ("Freedom
or Death"), the five blue stripes for the syllables "Έλευθερία" and the four white stripes "ή Θάνατος". The
nine stripes are also said to represent the letters of the word "freedom" (Greek: Ελευθερία). There is also a
different theory, that the nine stripes symbolize the nine Muses, the goddesses of art and civilization (nine has
traditionally been one of the numbers of reference for the Greeks). The official flag ratio is 2:3.